Problem: To Catch a Lion in the Sahara Desert.
- 3 Experimental Physics Methods
3.1 The thermodynamics method
We construct a semi-permeable membrane which lets everything but lions pass through. This we drag across the desert.
3.2 The atomic fission method
We irradiate the desert with slow neutrons. The lion becomes radioactive and starts to disintegrate. Once the disintegration process is progressed far enough the lion will be unable to resist.
3.3 The magneto-optical method
We plant a large, lense shaped field with cat mint (nepeta cataria) such that its axis is parallel to the direction of the horizontal component of the earth’s magnetic field. We put the cage in one of the field’s foci. Throughout the desert we distribute large amounts of magnetized spinach (spinacia oleracea) which has, as everybody knows, a high iron content. The spinach is eaten by vegetarian desert inhabitants which in turn are eaten by the lions. Afterwards the lions are oriented parallel to the earth’s magnetic field and the resulting lion beam is focussed on the cage by the cat mint lense.
[1] After Hilbert, cf. E. W. Hobson, “The Theory of Functions of a Real Variable and the Theory of Fourier’s Series” (1927), vol. 1, pp 456-457
[2] H. Seifert and W. Threlfall, “Lehrbuch der Topologie” (1934), pp 2-3
[3] According to the Picard theorem (W. F. Osgood, Lehrbuch der Funktionentheorie, vol 1 (1928), p 178) it is possible to catch every lion except for at most one.
[4] N. Wiener, “The Fourier Integral and Certain of its Applications” (1933), pp 73-74
[5] N. Wiener, ibid, p 89
[6] cf e.g. H. A. Bethe and R. F. Bacher, “Reviews of Modern Physics”, 8 (1936), pp 82-229, esp. pp 106-107
[7] ibid